OU-HCOM alumnus wins Distinguished Service Award
from university

October 14, 2009

William Burke, D.O., FACOFP (’88), will be recognized at the Ohio University Alumni Awards Gala Friday, Oct. 16, with the Distinguished Service Award. The honor is given to an alumnus/na each year for outstanding contributions to the university and community.

Burke is director of the family practice residency program at Doctors Hospital in Columbus and an associate professor of family medicine at OU-HCOM. Earlier this year, he lectured OU-HCOM first and second year students on professionalism. To read about his talk, go to http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/News/press/burke/index.htm.

Burke has been elected to the American Osteopathic Association House of Delegates and the OOA House of Delegates multiple times.

Burke has traveled to China four times as part of a humanitarian group to evaluate the state of primary care medicine and to provide medical assistance in the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake. To read about Burke’s visits to China, go to http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/news/stories/burke/.

He served on the Ohio University Alumni Association Board of Directors from 1996 to 2003, including two years as chairman.  He also served as president of OU-HCOM’s Society of Alumni and Friends for three years and as chair of the OU-HCOM Advisory Board for five years.  As a medical student, he served as president and vice president of the Student Government Association. He is a 1984 graduate of Capital University in Columbus.

In 2006 Burke received the OU-HCOM Society of Alumni and Friends Distinguished Service Award, and in 2008, the American Osteopathic Foundation’s Distinguished Service Award. He has been the recipient of numerous other awards, including the inaugural Merck/Schering-Plough Clinical Assessment Program (CAP) Residency Program of the Year Award from the American Osteopathic Foundation in 2007. He was honored with the award for a second time in 2009. Burke also received the Prism Award from OhioHealth on three occasions, and the Outstanding Family Physician Award – Central Ohio CORE on two occasions.